An archaeology of Waigeo, Raja Ampat Islands, West Papua

Working paper

This book describes the archaeology of Waigeo Island in the Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua. This island was first visited by humans over 50,000 years ago, representing the earliest settlement of the Pacific region by boat or raft. We have very little archaeological evidence for what these people did on the island, but we know they were processing plants in complex ways, using tree sap to make resins for use in fires or as adhesives. These early people moved from the coast to the inland rainforests to hunt native animals such as marsupials, ground birds, and possibly rats and bats too. Later in time, about 14,000–4000 years ago as the global climate got warmer, humans on Waigeo began to hunt an even larger number of rainforest animals like fruit bats, large rats, bandicoots, cuscus, sugar gliders, and pythons. At the same time, people foraged for freshwater shellfish and plants like tubers. They also caught some coastal animals like fast-swimming fish and sea urchins. People may have even transported forest wallabies from the mainland of New Guinea to Waigeo, which are now locally extinct on the island. By about 3000 years ago, at the time when new ‘Austronesian’ languages were entering the Pacific, there was a distinctive change in the archaeological record. People stopped hunting intensively in the rainforest and began to catch fish and collect shellfish from the nearby coral reefs and mangroves. These people were the first to use pottery on the island and may be associated with red rock art painted high on coastal cliffs. Finally, within the last 1200 years, people on Waigeo became more connected with global trade networks, obtaining Chinese glazed ceramics, glass beads from Southeast Asia or India, and eventually pottery from the Netherlands. We know that a new style of white rock art was produced during this time and that people placed their ancestors’ bones in caves and crevices along the coast. The archaeology of Waigeo is testament to the long and diverse histories of human culture on this western Pacific island.

Authors: Gaffney, D; Tanudirjo, DA; Djami, ENI; Macap, AR; Russell, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Archaeology Programme, University of Otago
• Series: Working Papers in Anthropology
• Place of publication: Dunedin, New Zealand
• Publication date: 2023-01-01
• Paper number: 8
• ISBN: 9780992262679
• Language: English